One of the difficult problems in the container art and especially in the manufacture of containers for paint and similar products such as the metal containers in the one gallon sizes normally used in the paint industry as well as in other sizes has been the provision of containers and lids therefor which will withstand damage caused by dropping the container or by compression when containers are stacked on one another. When a container filled with a liquid such as paint which is normally quite heavy is dropped from a substantial distance, say from a height of 18 to 30 inches, there is a tendency for the container to come apart or be damaged in the area where the lid is secured to the container.
Once the seal between the lid and the container has been broken and the contents are exposed to air, the contents in many cases will be unusable unless the damage is detected within a short period of time and corrected or the contents removed from the container. In many cases once the lid and rim structure of the container has been damaged it is not possible to reapply the lid to the container and at the same time maintain a tight seal of the contents.
Many attempts have been made to solve this problem as illustrated by various structures suggested and taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,273,247, 2,734,654, 2,905,357, 3,383,006 (Re.26,730), 3,410,448, 3,770,161 and 3,825,149. In general, these structures have provided some improvement in the art but they still leave much to be desired, especially when subjected to drop tests and compression tests.